Matchmaker

Ted goes to a matchmaker who guarantees that her computer can find a person's soul mate in three days, and the computer reports no matches to Ted's profile except women who have already been matched. Lily and Marshall discover the horrifying "Cockamouse," a combination of a cockroach and a mouse.

Set in 1884, the story focuses on Dolly Gallagher Levi, a widow who supports herself by a variety of means, with matchmaking as her primary source of income. Horace Vandergelder, a wealthy but miserly merchant from Yonkers, New York, has hired her to find him a wife, but unbeknownst to him Dolly is determined to fill the position herself. When he expresses his intent to travel to New York City to woo milliner Irene Molloy, Dolly shows him the photograph of a woman she calls Miss Ernestina Simple and tells him the buxom beauty would be a far better choice for him. Horace agrees to have dinner with Ernestina at the Harmonia Gardens after visiting Irene. Meanwhile, Horace's clerk head Cornelius Hackl convinces his sidekick Barnaby Tucker that they, too, deserve an outing to New York. The two cause cans of tomatoes to explode, spewing their contents about the store, which justifies their closing it for the day and heading to the city.

Marcy Tizzard is assistant to Senator John McGlory from Boston, Massachusetts. In an attempt to court the Irish-American vote in a tough reelection battle, the bumbling senator's chief of staff, Nick, sends Marcy to Ireland to find McGlory's relatives or ancestors. Marcy arrives at the fictional village of Ballinagra as it is preparing for the annual matchmaking festival. She attracts the attention of two rival professional matchmakers, Dermot and Millie as well as roguish bartender Sean. The locals tolerate her genealogical search while trying to match her with various bachelors. Sean tries to woo Marcy despite her resistance to his boorish manners. After they have begun their romance, they return home to Sean's house one afternoon to find his estranged wife waiting for them. Marcy leaves Sean, upset that he did not disclose his marriage to her. McGlory and Nick arrive in Ballinagra, although Marcy's been unable to locate any McGlory relatives. McGlory discovers Sean's wife's maiden name is Kennedy and brings her back to Boston as his fiancee just in time for the election, and wins by a small margin. While at the victory party, McGlory's father reveals privately to Marcy that the family is Hungarian, not Irish. The family name had been changed at Ellis Island when they immigrated, but as they settled in Boston with its large Irish population, he never told his son their true lineage. Sean follows Marcy to Boston, and they reconcile.

The Matchmaker is a 2010 Israeli film written, directed and produced by Avi Nesher, based on the novel When Heroes Fly by award-winning author Amir Gutfreund. It premiered as an official selection at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival and later that year won the Silver Plaque award at the Chicago International Film Festival. It received seven nominations for Israel's Ophir Awards in 2010, including Best Picture, where Adir Miller also won in the Best Actor category and Maya Dagan won in the Best Actress category.

Thornton Wilder reworked the play, The Merchant of Yonkers into the famous play, The Matchmaker. It had a nice run on Broadway with 486 performances, and also won a Tony award for it's director, Tyrone Guthrie. It later becavme the basis for the 1964 Broadway sensation, Hello, Dolly!